No New Apple Television Products Coming in 2012 as Content Negotiations Stall Once Again

macrumors bot

Bloomberg reports that Apple will not be releasing a new "TV product" this year as difficult negotiations with media companies have slowed Apple's plans. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Apple is working a new set-top box offering access to live and on-demand television content, but a timeframe for a release of the product was not given at that time. Apple has also been said to be working on its own television set, but apparently neither product will be making an appearance in the relatively near future.

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Apple is vying with the likes of Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. to make TVs the digital hub of people's lives in an industry projected to reach $200 billion worldwide by 2017. Whoever wins must first strike deals with media companies or cable providers who have little incentive to cede valuable revenue streams. The result: Apple won't be releasing a new TV product this year, as analysts had predicted, said a person familiar with the company's plans.

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Negotiations between Apple and the media companies have reportedly stumbled over the software interface for any new television product from Apple, with cable companies wanting to have control over the software. The two sides are also at loggerheads over whether Apple would sell a new set-top box directly to consumers or if the device would be distributed by the cable companies.

The report also offers a rehashing of The Wall Street Journal's details on what the new set-top box would offer:

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Since the middle of the last decade, Apple's engineers have been working on a more advanced product to allow viewers to quickly find shows and movies, blending both live and recorded material, the people said. It would recommend content based on interests and work seamlessly with Apple's family of other devices. An iPhone or iPad would double as a remote control, the people said.

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Apple has reportedly been talking with cable companies since the original Apple TV's debut in 2007, but talks have repeatedly stalled over numerous issues. More recently, Apple is said to have focused on companies willing to offer Apple live content for streaming, with Time Warner Cable apparently being the major cable company most receptive to Apple's proposals.

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Apple is furthest along negotiating with Time Warner Cable Inc., said the people familiar with the talks. Yet even if Time Warner Cable agrees to a deal with Apple, it wouldn't represent a radical change for customers, who would still pay their monthly cable bill.

Apple may be looking to Time Warner Cable to be its first partner in a similar way that AT&T Inc. helped bring the iPhone to market, one person said.

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Beyond live content, Apple is also said to be pursuing substantial offerings of on-demand content, but media companies are wary of losing control of their content and the channel bundles offered through cable providers.

macrumors 68030

* Waits for flood of people saying Apple will just buy all the networks and cable companies *.

Because that will totally happen. I also think any form of Apple TV could be an issue, as the Telecomns, Networks and cable providers ( who tend to be the ISP's for most people as well ) really don't have anything to gain from Apples deals, which probably go something like " so, we'll take all the profit and you get nothing "

macrumors regular

Hey, another product that MR has been hyping up and proclaimed with certainty its coming only to back out at the 11th hour. Kinda like the iPad Mini that you guys guarenteed would be released 2 years ago and again last year?

In other news, the iPhone Mini is rumored to be in production. Here is a shoddy rendered picture. Trust us, its real....

Hey, another product that MR has been hyping up and proclaimed with certainty its coming only to back out when at the 11th hour. Kinda like the iPad Mini that you guys guarenteed would be released 2 years ago and again last year?

In other news, the iPhone Mini is rumored to be in production. Here is a shoddy rendered picture. Trust us, its real....

macrumors 6502a

Hey, another product that MR has been hyping up and proclaimed with certainty its coming only to back out at the 11th hour. Kinda like the iPad Mini that you guys guarenteed would be released 2 years ago and again last year?

In other news, the iPhone Mini is rumored to be in production. Here is a shoddy rendered picture. Trust us, its real....

macrumors 6502

New Apple TV definitely not coming this year. I doubt it will even come at 2013. I am really hoping for an easier to use TV though from any company. I just setup a new cable box today and it took me a long time to figure it out.

macrumors 6502a

Negotiations between Apple and the media companies have reportedly stumbled over the software interface for any new television product from Apple, with cable companies wanting to have control over the software.

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Yes, because Dish, Directv, comcast and others have all been highly successful at the software ran on their boxes. I mean, comcast has boxes out there that look like they run a form of DOS. As of right now while looking at all the different companies, it comes down to what system isn't a complete joke. None of them have been good although some are starting to improve.

macrumors member

I doubt Apple will play ball until cable providers start to change their current business model. That's hardly going to happen when people don't have much choice over who to go with region to region. The only way to change this is if we stop paying for traditional cable/satellite television on the whole.

Remember, Apple only went with AT&T because they were the only service provider willing to change their business model to accommodate Apple, and that was because of how poorly they stood in the market before the iPhone. Now they're back at number two and they've shown other providers Apple's model works just as well, as long as the product is desirable. That's how we're able to use iPhones without Verizon logos all over it, or we can listen to our music without having to use the Virgin Media Player/Music Store.

Cable providers will continue to want control of the software and hardware so they can continue to control the content and push higher priced content on us. They're not desperate to hand over control of how people watch their television... Yet.

macrumors 6502

Call me a pessimist, but these differences are major and will prevent any launch of an integrated tv product by any company for the foreseeable future, and I'm thinking in years here.

There just is no incentive for cable companies to go along. Now, for me, none of this matters very much because this is a US story, God knows when such a product would ever get to Europe (we're talking a hundred of these difficult partners in that case), but it's a shame for you guys.

macrumors regular

Or die out? How do you figure? They own the content that everyone wants.

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Yes but they don't provide it to you do they?? They sell the rights to satellite and cable providers which eventually will die out in favor of on demand content via broadband!!
I know people who have cancelled their cable/satellite in favor of Hulu and Netflix which charge much much less per month!! Which means people want on demand shows with no commercials or very little commercials. And we all know commercials are their cash cow. So if they don't get with the program now when they can charge apple more because cable/satellite is still popular, then they will die out and later on in the future be begging apple to make a deal worth much much less!!
I hope I make sense!!

macrumors G5

No content = no product...Even with Apple's bank balance the mooted TV products are a risk....You pay millions for the rights to content, then hope and pray that you're new all singing all dancing $3K+ priduct sells in enough volume to justify the cost of acquiring the content in the first place.

I for one would not rush out to replace my current 46" Sony with an Apple offering. I have 2 ATV3's too....I think Apple should take a very deep breathe before plunging into the cut-throat market that is media....It's a dog eat dog world....I know, I work in it.

macrumors 68000

macrumors 6502

Man, this actually informs me more about the pre iPhone smartphone world and what a great achievement by Apple and Cingular to break from the mould and offer something new. The TV content and distribution world seems to be in a similar rut. Apple just needs to break one open and others will then beg Apple to consider them also.

Wouldn't Direct TV and DISH be better partners for Apple's ambitions? That has lots of similarities to the cell phone companies ( having to install a dish notwithstanding ). For this to work, the distribution companies needed to have the right contract with the content providers so they can work Apple on such things.

macrumors 68030

macrumors 603

* Waits for flood of people saying Apple will just buy all the networks and cable companies *.

Because that will totally happen. I also think any form of Apple TV could be an issue, as the Telecomns, Networks and cable providers ( who tend to be the ISP's for most people as well ) really don't have anything to gain from Apples deals, which probably go something like " so, we'll take all the profit and you get nothing "

The current Apple TV setup seems to work pretty well as it is.

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I could see the telecoms being more responsive to the idea of being dumb pipes for media content as they have less of a stake than cable providers. If everyone is just streaming though, I wonder if we'll see bandwidth caps and throttling. Such things do exist in certain countries.

Those content owners better get with the program or die out. Now wonder they call them the dinosaur networks!!

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They would only die out if they can no longer profit from the content. Right now this hasn't happened, and there are other methods of distribution. Note netflix, hulu, etc. It's not like their only choice is to cater to Apple's will.

macrumors 6502a

As long as my AppleTV keeps working the way it does, content-wise. I'm happy.

I'd love to see the option of having a hard drive in there like on the generation 1 so I can store episodes, but I know that'll never happen.

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A hard drive would raise the cost of the unit, and there'll always been people to complain about the hard drive being too small.
What I'd like to see is support for NAS hard drives, although since the Apple TV relies on iTunes to serve the content from your local storage, that will probably never happen.

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